Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Top of the World

Based on the recommendation of several others, I went to the restaurant at the recently opened Top of the World hotel on my last morning in Barrow. I was told that the food was pretty good though a bit pricy and my first question was "good for Barrow or good". The response was decent for anywhere. On the outside it looked like a plain building with steel siding but the inside wasn't too bad. Others described it as very Marriot-like for lack of a better adjective. This is the main entry with the front desk just on the other side of the glass doors and the restaurant just beyond that.

This is the view from the restaurant and this was the side that I had seen when driving by. It still looked like construction was going on and I really couldn't tell that it was even open for business. During construction, I had always heard it referred to as the ASRC (Arctic Slope Regional Corp.) hotel and didn't realize that they are using the name of a hotel that suffered a lot of smoke damage last year when the adjoining restaurant caught fire. Breakfast was pretty good and the prices weren't that out of line for Barrow. $15 for breakfast and maybe double that for dinner. I'd go back.

This is the view from their lobby windows. Not too nice but then again it's still "mud season" around here and their parking lot still looks like a construction zone with stacks of materials, shipping containers and heavy machinery. But then again, that kind of describes many other locations in Barrow. This is looking towards the city center and the expanse of white is a frozen salt water body of water.

While waiting for a ride to the airport, I noticed this sign with whale bones and thought that this is one of the other places tour groups stop to take photos.

This is the ocean just beyond the sign. There is a lot of melt water on top of the ice. The weather was on the foggy side but it wasn't any problem for the Alaska Airlines crew. Someone at the tower had commented earlier that you can always tell if the flight crew was from the lower-48. They generally choose not to land in marginal flight conditions i.e. at or just above minimums.

These last three pictures were taken out at NARL across the street from the Umiaq Barrow Operations Building.

And he didn't even mention my new Ural! Well, Richard went and talked to the man who owns it. It isn't ready for Richard to look at. We have to wait until Friday. That means he may not purchase it until Monday! Well, I really should be finishing my paper. 10 more days.......I'm not very good at names. My car is Gadget because it is so electric. My van was the Golden Spaceship. I can't believe he didn't post anything about the Ural. Just about the restaurant in Barrow. I guess that could be interesting. Especially the view out the window. That's about the best it gets up there. Fairbanks is pretty. It is nice to have Richard back. He was gone too long this last trip.

I really wanted to see photos of the new Top of The World Hotel to see what it was like. We are spoiled here in the city with cheap breakfasts due to competition. In small towns it is more like $10-12. so I suppose $15. for Barrow looks reasonable

We have two seasons here too. Rain or Not raining. Sometimes the sun comes out

I had posted a picture of the outside of the hotel last October LINK during construction. It hasn't changed much. At Ilisagvik College, breakfast is still a very reasonable $7 for all you can eat. Lunch and dinner at the college is $15 so you can still eat too much fatty food for less than the per diem amount.

That's why I was surprised when others told me that it was really pretty nice inside. Not at all what I expected.

Yes $7 for breakfast is a bargain. Usually french toast, eggs with and without veggies, hash browns, toast, oatmeal, cereal, fruit, some sort of meat, biscuits and gravy, coffee, etc. More food than anyone needs that early in the morning.